Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id SAA04942 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 9 Mar 2000 18:07:20 GMT Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.20000309120458.010672f8@popmail.mcs.net> X-Sender: aaron@popmail.mcs.net X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2000 12:04:58 -0600 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: Aaron Lynch <aaron@mcs.net> Subject: Re: Martin Gardner's commentary In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.20000309010056.00e0a400@popmail.mcs.net> References: <38C7539D.B6097B38@fcol.com> <20000309011212.AAA12567@camailp.harvard.edu@[205.240.180.180]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
At 01:00 AM 3/9/00 -0600, Aaron Lynch wrote:
>At 11:32 PM 3/8/00 -0800, Robert G. Grimes wrote:
>>The site was totally bereft of clues to anyone by any name on memes...
>>
>>We appreciate the thought but need a reference or URL that works...
>>
>>Thanks....
>>
>>Cordially,
>>
>>Bob
>
>Hi Bob.
>
>I also got a private message from a friend calling attention to Gardner's
>article, as it also mentions my own book in passing.
>
>The correct URL, or at least one that worked for me just a few minutes ago
is:
>http://www.calendarlive.com/books/bookreview/20000304/t000000143.html
>
>--Aaron Lynch
>
Having read Martin Gardner's commentary, I must say that I agree with much
of what it says about the word "meme." Gardner makes a number of
observations that I have also been making in recent years, and that have
led me to state in my December 1999 Skeptical Inquirer article that thought
contagion theory does not depend upon having the word "meme." Put in more
technical terms, this means that the evolutionary epidemiology of ideas
does not require the word "meme." What is important, in my view, is a
theoretical paradigm rather than a particular word. For instance, if
refutation-resistant strains of doomsday belief evolved in the Y2K
"preparedness" movement, one should not need the word "meme" to say so.
Neither should one need to decide whether the concept of "Y2K denial" was
"an element of a culture" when it was first thought up, or when it was
first spread to new people by someone who thought it up.
By including the phrase "an element of a culture," the OED definition
effectively imports all of the old imprecision associated with the word
"culture" into the new word "meme." To narrow it down to those elements of
culture spread by non-genetic means is not really a limitation in the eyes
of many readers, who often will see "non-genetic culture" as a redundant
expression. Throwing in the word "imitation" has only led to disputes over
what constitutes "imitation," and may again look redundant to "culture" for
many readers. That gives the impression that "meme" just means "an element
of a culture," leaving Gardner and others wondering whether there is really
anything new or just a paraphrasing of existing social science or even of
common sense.
Perhaps I can demonstrate that useful new lines of study can be done in the
evolutionary epidemiology of ideas by writing publishing a work that
relegates the word "meme" strictly to a footnote.
--Aaron Lynch
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